EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.

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Amendment proposed—
In page 2, line 39, after the word 'authority,' to insert the words, 'shall, where the local education authority are the council of a county, have a body of managers consisting of a number of managers not exceeding four appointed by that council, together with a number not exceeding two appointed by the minor local authority. Where the local education authority are the council of a borough or urban district they may if they think tit appoint for any school provided by them such number of managers as they may determine.'(2) All public elementary schools not provided by the local education authority shall, in place of the existing managers, have a body of managers consisting of a number of trust I managers not exceeding four, appointed as provided by this Act, together with a number of managers not exceeding two appointed—(a) where the local education authority are the
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council of a county, one by that council and one by the minor local authority; and, (b) where the local education authority are the council of a borough or urban district, both by that authority.'(3) One of the managers appointed by the minor local authority, or the manager so appointed, as the case may be, shall be the parent of a child who is or has been during the last twelve months a scholar in the school.'(4) The "minor local authority" means the council of any borough or urban district, or the parish council or (where there is no parish council) the parish meeting of any parish, which appears to the County Council to be served by the school. Where the school appears to the County Council to serve the area of more than one minor local authority the County Council shall make such provision as they think proper for joint appointment by the authorities concerned.' "—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

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Question again proposed, "That those words, as amended, be there inserted."

had on the Paper an Amendment—
To leave out after the second 'managers' to the end of sub-Section 3 in order to insert, 'constituted under a scheme framed by the local education authority and subject to the approval of the Board of Education, which scheme shall provide (inter alia) that not less than one-third of such managers shall be elected by parents or guardians of the children for the time being on the roll of the school who shall be ratepayers of the school district.'

said that the Amendment he intended to propose raised
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the question of the whole management of many thousands of denominational schools, the maintenance of which would, under this Bill, come from public funds. On reading the terms of the scheme of management now submitted to the House he was not surprised it had been kept back up to this moment, and it would have been better had the House been put in possession of the proposals of the Government at an earlier stage. What was the main point of the scheme submitted by the Prime Minister? It started with the proposal that four managers should be appointed under the provision of the trust deeds of the voluntary schools. In the course of a previous debate he read to the Committee a copy of a model trust deed, and it was well the Committee should know on what these deeds were based. Looking to the nature of the trust deeds, it was quite clear the object of the scheme of management was to keep absolute control of these schools in denominational hands. He quoted to the House an opinion of an educationist, and a strong supporter of the Church, at a meeting at Norfolk on the previous day, to the effect that to maintain these trust deeds in the case of parishes where there was but one school was outrageous and unfair in connection with a State system of schools. The scheme of the Prime Minister went on to say that it must be shown to the satisfaction of the Board of Education that the trust deed was consistent with the provisions of the Act. That might be intended to safeguard the scheme. But the Prime Minister had told them the spirit of the Act was to retain the denominational system practically as it now exists.

I understood the Prime Minister to say he would not accept Amendments inconsistent with the spirit of the Act, which was to retain control of denominational schools by the denomination. Therefore, the Board of Education, construing this scheme in the spirit of the Act, would, no doubt, feel themselves quite at liberty to confer that strict denominationalism of which they complained as being a bane to education. The scheme went on to provide that
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orders might be made by the Board of Education on the application of the existing managers.

*THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is not now discussing his Amendment; he is discussing the new Clause; and he cannot go through the proposals of a new Clause not before the Committee seriatim. He must discuss his own Amendment.

asked, in view of that ruling, how it was possible to discuss this Amendment without considering the provisions in the new Clause of the First Lord of the Treasury, which was as much of the essence of the main Amendment as other supplementary Amendments discussed by the Chairman's leave and direction on their preliminaries. The present Amendment, and the next one on the Paper, were simply in the nature of preliminary Amendments to the new Clause of the First Lord of the Treasury, and it was impossible to discuss the Amendment without discussing the provisions of the new Clause.

*THE CHAIRMAN

said the proper place to discuss the new Clause was when they reached it. His previous rulings were to the effect that the substantial part of a series of Amendments should appear on the Paper, so that the Committee might know to what they were being committed in principle. But the details could only be discussed when the later Amendments were reached.

said the question of principle was now raised, and it would not be possible to discuss the question at all if they could not refer to the new scheme. How could they discuss the question as to how the rest of the managers were to be constituted unless they knew definitely what was to be done in the case of the trust managers?

*THE CHAIRMAN

said he did not say it could not be referred to. He stopped the hon. Member from going through the new Clause paragraph by paragraph.

said the new Clause would not be introduced till after Clause 15, and, in the circumstances, suggested that, if it was really desired to settle the
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question of management, it should be embodied in the present Clause—which was absolutely unintelligible without the new Clause. Let the right hon. Gentleman propose to omit the words "as provided by this Act."

*THE CHAIRMAN

said the question of its introduction could be raised when they came to the words "as provided by this Act," but they had not yet reached that point.

said he would, of course, bow to the ruling of the Chairman, but it was impossible to discuss the question of the appointment of managers without casting a glance at the kind of managers and the way in which they were to be elected. The scheme of the original Bill provided that there should be four trust managers appointed, which gave two - thirds of the management to the denomination which paid no portion of the maintenance money. That was one of the main grounds of objection they took to the proposal. It had been held that the justification for giving a two-thirds proportion of the managers to the denomination was that the buildings were provided by the denomination. But it had been far too readily assumed that this was true. In the first place, millions of money had been granted from public funds for the erection of denominational schools. Within a few months of the passing of the Education Act of 1876, some 3,000 or more building grants were granted, more than twenty times in excess of the annual rate up to that time. Then it was a fact that large sums had been subscribed for the erection of denominational schools by people who did not belong to the Church of England, therefore they felt that the claim to two-thirds of the managers
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on this ground could not be supported. He believed, moreover, that, the figure named by the Prime Minister as the purchase value of these schools —£26,000,000 — was a very excessive figure. But however that might be, it would be far simpler for the State to pay a fair and reasonable rent for the schools, and in that way meet the claims of the denominationalists to the schools. The Prime Minister regarded the opposition which had been shown to his scheme as wholly Nonconformist in character. But that was not so. The main ground of the opposition was that the scheme violated an important constitutional principle, namely, that institutions maintained out of public funds should be subject to public control. It was true Nonconformists had come to the front in resisting the proposals of the Government, but they were fighting this battle—as they had fought many a fight for civil, as well as religions, liberty before—on the broad constitutional principle he had laid down. Then this large amount of control was claimed in the interests of religious teaching, but he asserted that Nonconformists had no desire to do anything that would jeopardise religious teaching; in proof of which he averred that Nonconformists maintained in their Sunday Schools half-a-million more children than were to be found in the Sunday Schools connected with the Established Church. Upon the point of what the State was entitled to teach in the form of religion, he quoted John Bright, that the only religion the State had the right to teach was the love of truth, the love of virtue, the love of God, and the fear of offending Him. Their contention was that any denomination which desired to teach more than that should be prepared to pay for the maintenance of the schools in which the instruction was given. They could not rightly claim management of State schools which were supported, wholly out of public funds. The bulk of the trust deeds, under which denominational schools were carried on, were made when these schools were under very different conditions to those which prevailed today. The denominationalists then paid a very large proportion of the cost of the schools. He maintained they had no right to keep this dead hand in the shape of a trust deed upon the schools when the conditions had completely changed. The Commission on
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Secondary Education did not evince so much respect for the trust deeds of the secondary schools as the Prime Minister appeared to show in regard to the trust deeds of the elementary schools. The plan which he proposed in his Amendment was that the local education authority should have the power to draw up schemes of management for the voluntary schools. He had safeguarded that proposal by placing a certain amount of control in the hands of the Board of Education. The local authority would not be composed wholly of militant Nonconformists. They would be largely, if not mainly, composed of members of the Church of England, and could be safely trusted to deal fairly with the various interests involved. Such schemes were already in existence, and he mentioned a village where the support of Nonconformists to the village schools had been enlisted by a plan of giving a proportion of management to those who subscribed. Both denominational and undenominational religious teaching was given in the schools so managed, and the plan worked very well indeed. There was a very strong feeling in the country that the priests of the Anglican Church should no longer retain sole control of the voluntary schools, and he claimed that the plan he proposed would be generally welcomed. He believed, further, that the parents should be directly represented on the boards of managers. He would, however, refrain from moving his Amendment at this stage, because he was desirous not to shut out the Amendment to be submitted by the noble Lord the Member for the Cricklade Division.

* (12.40.)THE CHAIRMAN

said speeches of the character of that just delivered ought to be followed by a Motion. It was a gross a buse of the forms of the House to speak for half an hour, and lead the House to suppose that an Amendment would be proposed, and then conclude without doing so. The-whole of the hon. Member's speech would have been out of order, because it did not relate to any Motion before the House.

I think it is due to the Committee to say it was not until I had advanced in my speech that
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I gathered that the noble Lord desired to move his Amendment, and I did not desire to shut him out. I had no intention to occupy the time of the House unfairly, and in order to put myself in order I will move the first portion of the Amendment I have on the Paper.

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Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment—
In line 9, after the second word ' managers,' to leave out to end of line 18, and insert the words ' constituted under a scheme framed by the local education authority, and subject to the approval of the Board of Education.' "— (Mr. Georger White.)

hoped the Committee would be of opinion that the Amendment was one which it was quite impossible to accept. Under this Bill, those schools which had been provided in the interest of a particular form of religious teaching, and which were to be kept in order and repair by those who were interested in those schools, were to be maintained—so far as secular teaching went—out of public funds. Surely every one would realise that it was right that there should be some security taken that the character of those schools should not be abruptly terminated. Was any one prepared to say that the Bill should go through without taking some security that the character of these schools should not be at once transformed under it? They were, for the most part, of a denominational character, and, if the Amendment were accepted, they would be left without any security whatever that they would not be converted from denominational into purelv undenominational schools. It would not be fair to pass an Amendment without we have such a very sweeping effect.

said the Attorney-General seemed to have founded his opposition to any Amendment of the Government proposal on the ground that the schools had been provided by a particular denomination, and that it was unfair to
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interfere with their rights to retain the private management. But there was one aspect of the case which he did not touch at all, and that was that in founding these schools the Church, after all, deliberately used its political power in order to obtain a monopoly of the education. The fact that other denominations had not built as many schools as the Church was due to their not being in a position to do it. This claim on the part of the friends of the Church was hardly consistent with the more logical view held by the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich, that it was necessary for the moral welfare of the people that the Church of England, and the Church of England alone, should maintain a monopoly of education.

said he certainly had strangely mistaken the attitude of the noble Lord, if the whole tenor of his argument and speeches had not been in the direction of asserting that the religious education of the Church of England—

From the noble Lord's remarks about the "two doors," I understood his view to be that the education provided by the Church of England was, to his mind at any rate, a necessary part of the moral and religious welfare of the people.

said that in that case all he had to say was that he failed entirely to understand why the noble Lord, or anybody on that side of the Committee, should insist for one moment that it was necessary to maintain the control of the Church over the religious education. It seemed to him that they were really arguing about nothing at all, if the Government, and their supporters attached no value to the principle for which they were contending. They, on
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the other hand, did attach enormous value to the principle at stake in this Bill. Personally, he had refrained from intervening much in the debates, because he did not wish to add even his small quotation to the controversy on a question, which above all things, he desired to see settled in an amicable manner. He hoped that some compromise might yet be arrived at. This question, unfortunately, was being raised entirely by the friends of the Church; the representatives of other denominations were not raising it at all, although, undoubtedly, their demand for a proper and reasonable share of popular control in the management of schools, provided for out of public funds, was a just one which ought to be conceded.

(1.0.)SIR WALTER FOSTER(Derbyshire, Ilkeston)

expressed the opinion that the Attorney-General, in answering the Amendment, hardly did justice to those who had supported it. They had no desire that these schools should be abolished. The Amendment was moved with no such intention as that, and they would be glad to make any provision by which such a thing could be avoided. It was surely not beyond the wit of the Government to find some way out of the difficulty, and this Amendment offered the means of a compromise. He did not support it for a moment with the notion that the local authority would immediately rush madly into the attempt to turn these denominational schools into secular schools. Denominational teaching was as dear to the Liberal side of the House as to the Unionist side. All they wanted was that, associated with the management of these schools, there should be a certain amount of popular control, and the Amendment suggested the method by which that could be obtained without injuring the character of the school. It was impossible to conceive that the County Councils of this country, and the Education Committees which they would appoint, would, for a moment, attempt to divert these schools; and it was also inconceivable that the Board of Education in London would sanction such a thing; and, if necessary, they were willing to give further safeguards to prevent such a thing occurring. They did not
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raise any objection to the claim for denominational teaching; they admitted its necessity, but every school consisted of three parts—the fabric, the children who were educated by the school, and the public who provided the maintenance of the school. These three should be considered with equal justice, and every County Council would, he thought, meet this matter in a fair and proper spirit. He felt convinced, that if the matter were well considered, they might come to an equitable arrangement, and he earnestly appealed to the First Lord of the Treasury to find some method by which a compromise could be arrived at.

said the centre of interest of the Amendment was a fair representation in the management. It would be admitted that that part of the community which paid taxes and rates should be entitled to equal authority.

*THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out that the latter part of the Amendment was not moved, but only the first part, which proposed that in each case a scheme should be made by the Board of Education.

said, made by the local authority and approved by the Board of Education. He thought he should have been in order in discussing the other portion, but he would not pursue it. Would he be in order in discussing the omission of sub-Section 3, because the hon. Member proposed to leave out to the end of line 18. If he was right in his supposition—

*THE CHAIRMAN

said the hon. Member was not right. The Question he put was, "That the words 'consisting of' stand part of the Question."

said that that considerably limited the Amendment. However, he might just say that he was not particularly fond of schemes unless he knew what they were. And though these schemes had to be approved by the Board of Education, that Department was not one which commended itself to his judgment.

said, as one of those who sat on the Government side of the House who was very much dissatisfied with the mode of representation proposed by the Bill, he appealed to the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment, in order that the Committee might get to something more definite. He could not conceive that the plan embodied in the Amendment would work smoothly, or would prove to be to anyone's interest.

said the proposal which he made on the previous Monday was an extremely moderate one, and it was rejected. Now the Government were face to face with a number of proposals to revolutionise the denominational schools. He only rose now to explain, however, that it would be impossible for those associated with him to support the Amendment, which was not in the nature of a compromise. This proposal would affect the constitution of the management of all the denominational schools throughout the country. They were told that there would be security in the fact that a scheme would have to meet with the approval of the Board of Education; but he looked forward to the day, which, in view of recent events, might not be far distant, when his hon. friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs might be President of the Board of Education, and he could not see much promise of protection to the denominational schools in that arrangement.

said that, although the proposal was not an ideal one, it was far better than the proposal in the Bill, because, undoubtedly, in the country, denominationalists would be elected to the County Councils after the passage of this Bill, and they were far more tolerant than the Government in this matter, and he thought they would not allow so many grievances to exist as existed at present. As an instance of the grievances which at present existed, he read from a Church newspaper of December 14th last the following paragraph—
As a notable instance of the admirable way in which Church schools may be really made
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worth the name, we should like to name St. Mary Magdalene, Paddington. Many a little Dissenter, so-called, has been taught the Catholic faith, as, although the Conscience Clause is there, it has only once been used to withdraw a child from religious instruction. We know many an instance of the children, when older, coming forward for confirmation entirely from the sound teaching they had received in their school days.
His father had received a letter dated April 24th last, from one of his constituents, a lady, in which she said—
I do hope to live to see efficient elementary education free from the control of the State Church, for in this parish the vicar, and curate also, are teaching the children of Dissenters that all who enter a Dissenting place of worship are going to destruction; also that children baptised by Dissenters are not legally baptised.
He could give other instances of the same kind. In another case the daughter of a farmer applied for a position of pupil teacher in a Church school in her own village; she was told that she was a Dissenter, that her parents were Dissenters, and that she could not be allowed to occupy the position and, as a result, she had to travel 5,000 miles in the next four years in order to obtain a position as a teacher in a board school. He therefore thought such a scheme as was put forward by the Amendment was a good thing, and he hoped the Amendment would be accepted.

said that although he thought it impossible to assent to this Amendment in its present form, because it was impossible to simply refer to the local authority the vexed questions with which they had been so long dealing, yet he ventured to think that, with some additions, it might be made of practical utility. The Amendment had this advantage, that instead of laying down in detail the same thing for all areas it gave the opportunity of simply laying down general principles which might be carried out with modifications of detail in various areas. It had, moreover, this greater advantage at the present moment, that it seemed to offer an opportunity to the Prime Minister of making such a compromise as would be more or less acceptable to all of them. He heard the Bill spoken of yesterday as a bad Bill. For his part, he regarded it as a good Bill. There were two features in it which, if carried, would last for ever
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—features of great potential good. But whether that good, from being merely potential, would become actual and real would not depend upon the particular Clauses of the Bill itself. The Bill could merely be a rough hewn measure shaped finally by practice afterwards, it could only be successful by being cordially accepted and loyally worked out by the people. He himself was prepared to give up a good deal to see it pass. He did not believe in denominational schools. He believed in religion being taught in school, but he believed in the school itself being undenominational. But that he knew he could not attain to. He would like to see it, because be felt that in all cases it was a difficulty that in a denominational school a teacher was selected to teach secular knowledge, not only on account of his secular attainments but also on account of his religious tenets. The very essential of a denominational school was the continuance of a test the removal of which had given new life to our older seats of learning, and the absence of which was the mainspring of our newer seats of learning. But so much did ho think of the other features of the Bill, that he was willing to give up his opposition to that part of it. He felt sure that no Bill could be loyally accepted by the people which did not continue for the present the system of denominational schools. Therefore, he was anxious that the Prime Minister should see his way to attaching to this scheme the principle that there should be an adequate share of control by the local authority, combined with some security, which, he imagined, it was not beyond legal ability to devise, that the denominational character of the school should not be changed, unless at any time or other there was an obvious and irresistible desire on the part of the denomination to change it. He would ask the Prime Minister if he could not, by some such way as he had suggested, put something before them which might be accepted at all events by the majority on both sides, so that they might go to the country having produced something which the country would loyally accept and heartily work out.

confessed that had almost any other individual in the House except his hon. friend addressed
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an appeal to him which seemed so remote from the special Amendment before them as this, he would not have asked to be allowed to detain the House in order to make a reply. His hon. friend came to him with the request to find means by which all the strife of sects and denominations should be healed, at all events so far as this question of primary education was concerned. He did not believe that any man could make a successful reply to that demand. He knew that he had given the best of his abilities, the best of his thoughts, and many months to this problem; he certainly had approached it in no sectarian spirit; and he had desired, in so far as he had anything to do with the Bill, to make it a great educational measure. If it had been possible for those responsible for the framing of the Bill to evade, to pass on one side, this great denominational difficulty, there was no sacrifice which they would not have made to attain such a result. But unhappily it was, he feared, absolutely impossible. There were hon. Gentlemen opposite—he made no reference to hon. Members on his own side—who had devoted as much thought as he had to this question, perhaps more, for many years, and to whom it had been one of the great and absorbing topics of current political controversy. Had they ever suggested a plan? Had any educationist, entirely outside these wretched denominational differences, ever suggested a plan? Had his hon. friend himself ever suggested a plan? Had any friend of his ever suggested a plan? He thought it would be found, whenever these plans were analysed that it came to this— they must choose clearly and definitely one of two solutions of the question. Were denominational schools to be left to the denominations, or were they to be taken away from them? It was a dilemma which no one could get round. Hon. Gentlemen opposite would never be content unless these schools were taken away. That was not the path of peace. He was not arguing at the moment which was the right plan; his hon. friend did not make an appeal to him in favour of what was abstractedly best, but in favour of something which would allay controversy and bring peace to the
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unsettled minds of the public in connection with this most difficult matter. His appeal was for peace, but he would not get peace by any plan—

said that what he suggested was that the right hon. Gentleman should find some terms which wouldsecure the denominational character of the schools, even in presence of what was spoken of as adequate representation of the local authority. He understood that the fear in regard to increasing the representation of the local authority was that that body would intervene to destroy the denominational character of the school. All he asked the Prime Minister was—could not he or his legal advisers find some terms which, while permitting that increase in the representation of the local authority which was demanded, not on the Opposition side of the House only, but on the Ministerial side too, would yet secure by some legal phrase, that the denominational character of the school should not be changed unless the denomination itself wished it?

said he thought his hon. friend did not exaggerate the ingenuity of the legal advisers of the Government, but he did exaggerate the power of the law. These things were not to be done by any phrase however ingeniously framed. His idea was a practical idea; it was to retain the denominational character of the schools and yet give public control. He thought his hon. friend forgot how far they had succeeded in getting towards that idea. Not only had they given the whole control and responsibility of secular education to a popularly elected body, but they had placed upon the management of all these voluntary schools persons representing popularly elected bodies. Therefore they had linked the minor school authority with the major school authority, the managers with the educational committee, in such a way that not only had the education committee the right and the responsibility, but they had the power. He really thought that hon. Members constantly forgot that fact. The word management appeared to obscure their eyes to the real facts as they were embodied in the Bill. According to the Bill, secular education, in which his hon. friend was so
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largely interested, was absolutely under the control of the popularly elected body. ["No."] That, at all events, was his opinion. ["Who appoints the teacher?"] The teacher was, of course, appointed by the denomination, but there was a veto upon him, so that no incompetent teacher could be selected; and if a teacher, when selected, proved to be incompetent, he might be dismissed by the popularly-elected body. His hon. friend must admit, he thought, that they had travelled an enormous distance in the direction which he desired. His hon. friend saw exactly where they stood. Nothing would satisfy the gentlemen opposite, whom he wished to conciliate, and whom, Heaven knew, he himself also wished to conciliate, if it was in his power, but an arrangement that the teacher should be elected by some body that did not represent the denomination. The Committee had got down, to that narrow issue. His hon. friend thought that all the difficulties incident to a state of things like that could be avoided by a clause drawn up by a competent lawyer, which said that, notwithstanding the character of the teacher or anything else concerning him, the school should remain of the denomination to which it originally belonged. It really was absolutely impossible that they should honestly, and he had almost said without profanity, try to work a system under which those who selected the teacher and those who could dismiss the teacher, belonged perhaps to no denomination at all, or to a denomination antagonistic to the original owners of the school, and yet had to make the teacher teach the denominational religion of the school, to superintend his teaching of denominational religion in the school, and see that he conducted it effectively. He could not imagine a system more unworkable. He could not imagine a system which would be more repulsive to any man of true religious instincts. He apologised to the Committee for having spoken, because he was conscious that he had gone far beyond the limits of the Amendment. It was only the appeal of his hon. friend which had made him speak. Having himself been a transgressor, he ventured to make an appeal to his brother transgressors as regarded the limitation of the debate. If they had a Second Reading discussion on every suggestion, he did
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not see that they, the Bill, the public, or anybody else profited. If they were to bring these issues, the importance of which he was the last to minimise, to some definite head, discuss them in a businesslike spirit, and vote upon them, he thought it would be to the advantage of them all.

explained that, in his view a school of which the head teacher did not belong to the denomination would not be a denominational school. He would be glad to see words introduced in Clause 8 making it absolutely clear that the head teacher and possibly other teachers should belong to the denomination.

said that the sincerity, he might almost say the solemnity, with which the right hon. Gentleman had expressed his opinion had impressed them all. But while he recognised the right hon. Gentleman's sincerity he could not share his despair. He believed that a solution could be found, and that only time, thought, and good intent were needed to attain it. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that the question did not arise on this Amendment, and he would ask his hon. friend to withdraw his proposal, so that the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for- the Cricklade Division, which was conceived in the interests of peace, might be moved. That Amendment would give a better opportunity for discussing the possibility of an arrangement.

asked leave to withdraw his Amendment, which, he explained, had been moved solely for the purpose of bringing the question of management before the Committee in the hope that some method might be devised for meeting what he believed was the practically unanimous desire of the Committee.

*THE CHAIRMAN

Is it the pleasure of the Committee that the Amendment be withdrawn? [Cries of "No."]

was surprised at the attitude of hon Members on the other side. It was entirely in the interests of the
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progress of the Bill that leave to withdraw the Amendment was asked, and if that permission was refused the responsibility would rest entirely with the supporters of the Government, and it would be necessary to submit arguments for the acceptance of the Amendment. It raised a purely practical issue as to the way in which after the Bill was carried they should proceed with the appointment of managers. The great argument in its favour was not so much the religious one as that which had been so frequently urged by the Prime Minister—viz., the desirability of elasticity in these schemes. The same sort of clause was introduced into the Welsh Education Act. There was no general scheme of management provided for all the schools; it was simply enacted that schemes should be prepared by the local authority and submitted to the Charity Commissioners and the Education Department, and finally to the House of Commons. Local circumstances, peculiarities, and difficulties were thus taken into account, with the result that many different schemes were working in each district. The local authority should be left to decide as to the best method of managing the schools in its own district. It was a mistake for them to be circumscribed with regard to numbers. In one district even six managers would not be necessary, while in another ten might be required to manage the schools properly. It was argued that the proposal would interfere with the denominational schools. But this was simply a skeleton suggestion, and if hon. Members thought something further was necessary in order to safeguard the denominational schools they had simply to introduce amendments for the purpose. As to the statement of the First Lord that no plan had been suggested, the Opposition had put forward every plan that the wit of man could devise, and the right hon. Gentleman had not merely rejected them, but he had rejected them without even giving them due consideration. He had rejected every compromise, and the opponents of the Bill were now prepared to fight the matter out both in the House and in the country.

said he felt it his duty as a supporter of the main principles of the Bill, to join in the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the London University, to seek to bring the various sphases of opinion expressed in many parts of the House together by some reasonable compromise.

*THE CHAIRMAN

The debate ought now to be confined to the Amendment. I admit that it has taken a very wide turn.

said he was strongly in favour of greater popular control in the management of schools than was provided for in the Bill. He held that the larger the popular control the better it would be for the denomination and for education as well. He was not unmindful of the spirit manifested by the Prime Minister in framing the Amendment. He thought it was a manifestation of a spirit and a desire which the Prime Minister had shown all along to deal fairly and justly with the interests of all. He regarded the alteration in the proportion as being an advantage, and he appreciated the recognition of the principle of local representation through the Parish Councils. These schools would be attended chiefly by the children of the working classes, and it was well that the working classes should have an opportunity of taking part in the management of the schools. He would venture to suggest to the Prime Minister that, if he could not give a representation of one half to popularly elected managers, he could at least give three to four. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would do something to meet the strong feeling, not only among hon. Members opposite, but among many loyal supporters of the Unionist Party. The hon. Member for Saffron Walden mentioned several cases of tyranny in voluntary schools, but on this point he wished to remind the hon. Member that hon. Members on the Ministerial side were as indignant as hon. Members opposite in regard to any such acts of tyranny. As a supporter of this measure he ventured to say that the proposals contained in this Bill would make it
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completely impossible that any such things could happen after the Bill became law. When the Government brought in a Bill to prevent these scandals surely their proposals ought to command some sympathy from hon. Members sitting on the opposite side of the House. He appealed to the Prime Minister to endeavour to do something to meet the proposals made for a compromise. It would be a misfortune if this opportunity were lost, and unless some steps were taken to secure greater control, this Bill would cause a great deal of friction.

remarked that if the right hon. Gentleman did not meet the wishes of the House—he would not say of the Opposition only—he would bring trouble on the country. For his own part he could repeat with a very good conscience what the hon. Member who had just sat down said with regard to the advisability of coming to a compromise. The right hon. Gentleman was of opinion that unless they left two-thirds of the management in the hands of the owners of the voluntary schools they would destroy the denominational character of those schools. If the right hon. Gentleman would leave the House free to settle this question they would hit upon a scheme which would not destroy the denominational character of the schools. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University told the House how he had met a number of men who differed from him politically, and he was afraid that what they had told him in private was not sincere.

said he did not think there was anything in what he had said which would convey that impression. What he said was that already many communications had passed between the supporters of the Government and hon. Members opposite upon this subject, and he had come to the conclusion that the First Lord of the Treasury could not satisfy the wishes of hon. Members opposite consistently with maintaining the denominational character of the schools.

said he could assure the hon. Gentleman that in their endeavours to make peace upon this subject they were absolutely sincere. They were not at all unwilling to preserve the denominational character of the schools, and he agreed with the hon. Member who had just spoken, and with the hon. Gentleman the Member for the London University that if the appointment of the head teacher was secured to the denomination that would settle the denominational character of the school. A suggestion had been made that the strictly denominational teaching might be confined to two days a week—

said he would not allude to anything which the right hon. Gentleman had said during the afternoon—

*THE CHAIRMAN

The only question before the Committee is whether the scheme should be framed by the local authority subject to the approval of the Board of Education. That is the only proposal which is now before the Committee.

said he desired to move an Amendment, not exactly the Amendment which appeared on the Paper, because the Committee had now passed the precise words where that Amendment should have been moved. The Amendment he would move was, however, substantially the same. It was to insert in line 10, after the words ''consisting of" the words ''persons to be appointed as hereinafter provided," and to omit the subsequent words. In placing the Amendment before the Committee he
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was actuated by exactly the same feelings which animated the eloquent appeal which the Committee had the advantage of hearing from his right hon. friend the Member for West Wolverhampton. His right hon. friend urged in powerful language that in the circumstances of time and place in which the Committee found themselves, it was impossible to do justice to the numerous proposals before the Committee. There was more than one proposal before the Committee; and, indeed, the position of the Committee in regard to those proposals was so
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peculiar that he would ask leave to point out exactly what that position now was. The management Clauses of the Bill were Nos. 7 and 8; but by the action of the Government themselves a great change had been made. Clauses 7 and 8 dealt with management, although from different aspects. The principle was laid down in Clause 7 and the details as to non - provided schools in Clause 8. Suddenly, however, the Government pitch-forked part of Clause 8 into Clause 7, thereby making a very serious alteration in the Bill. Further, the First Lord of the Treasury placed on the Paper an Amendment which the Committee had been discussing for several days. That Amendment contained most important proposals, which, he was willing to grant, were proposed with an intention of finding something which would be acceptable to both sides. That intention had, however, not been successful, and fresh controversy had arisen. Then, a few days ago, a new Clause was placed on the Paper, which was practically an explanation of that part of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment which referred to the election of trust managers. The new proposals were of the widest and most sweeping character; and he was inclined to think that they would very likely raise a hornets' nest in almost every parish in England where denominational schools existed. He did not very strongly believe in sticking forever to the letter of every trust deed in regard to schools; but there was no doubt that any attempt to touch such deeds was always a matter which excited the greatest amount of apprehension, especially in Church circles. They were, therefore, in the position of having an amended Clause in an Amendment to to the Amendment, and a new Clause which practically should be read with the Amendments. That was a state of almost unexampled confusion. Every hon. Member who had the good or bad fortune to preside over a Committee of the House of Commons would know that there was nothing more troublesome to deal with than an Amendment to an Amendment, but when on top of that they had a new Clause to be read with the Amendments, then they had arrived at a period when stock ought to be taken of the
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position. Apart from the circumstances of the Amendment, there were circumstances of time. They were now close to the end of the present period of the session. They would meet again in October, and that being so, he would suggest in a perfectly friendly spirit that, having regard to the extreme difficulty of the task in which they were engaged, the proper course would be to revert to the original scheme of the-Bill. If his Amendment were adopted, the meaning would be the same as if the Clause had remained as it originally stood. The best proof of the existing confusion was that they had now almost forgotten the unfortunate Bill, and it was relegated to comparative obscurity. What in such circumstances was the best course to pursue? He hoped the Committee would forgive him for alluding again to the precedent of Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1870, which was placed in the same difficult position, and when identical controversies were being discussed. What happened with the Education Bill of that year? It was read a second time in March, and it was not until the first days of July that the Committee stage was taken. Why? Because negotiations were in progress inside and outside the House which resulted in large alterations being agreed to. The Bill was committed pro forma, it was then reprinted with the agreed Amendments, and then recommitted, to be finally considered in Committee, and it was not until the first days of July that the real Committee stage was entered upon. Actuated by a desire, as he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would believe, to extricate the Committee from the difficult, if not impossible, position in which it was, he now moved his Amendment. He stood on the strong ground that he was asking the Committee to do what one of the strongest Governments of the past was asked to do, and did. Why should not the interval until October be spent in considering the eloquent appeals which had been addressed to the Committee from hon. Members on both sides? Hon. Members opposite might imagine that they on that side were approaching the question in too polemical a spirit; but in view of the appeals which had been addressed to the Committee by the hon. Member for the
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University of London and of the hon. Member opposite, was it not unreasonable to conclude that the wit of man could not devise some means of getting over their difficulties, large as he admitted they were. They had all advanced on the question of the Church party—with the exception of the small faction of thirty Members in the House, the importance of which he was inclined to think had been exaggerated in the country. The Church party, or if hon. Members preferred it, the Conservative or Unionist Party, had advanced a great deal as compared with their opinion a few years ago, and indeed even a few months ago. His Nonconformist friends had also made a very great advance on the question. The Nonconformists would themselves acknowledge that they could recollect the time when many of the most respected Nonconformists were not very anxious to see State interference in the matter of education. They were all approaching, he hoped, a settlement. This prayer was that they should now cease angry discussion, conclude the business of the session, and endeavour to arrive at an agreement before the House resumed in October. Let there be something like a round table conference in the meantime. He did not mean a round table conference consisting entirely of ecclesiastics, whether they were Church of England or Nonconformists. He did not wish to say anything about the round table conference which was arranged with the most excellent intentions by the Bishop of London, although he confessed he was rather alarmed when he heard it was to assemble, and he was glad to learn that it separated peaceably. He claimed that the education question was above all a question for the laity. There should be some attempt on the part of reasonable men on both s des to see whether, as the hon. Member for the University of London said, it was not possible to arrive at some agreement. In any event, the attempt was worth making. It might fail or it might succeed; but let them hope it would succeed. If the Clause were to be passed by the closure, if they were met by a no-surrender attitude on the ground that the question was insoluble, then, as his hon. friend the Member for the University of London said, the controversy might be nominally closed
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in this House, but a far larger and more dangerous controversy would be opened in the country which would continue until it was ended by the victory of the principles they on that side of the House advocated. The victory for the moment might be with hon. Members opposite; but in the long run he thought it would be with them. He appealed, however, in the interests of the honour and reputation of the House of Commons, that some arrangement should be arrived at. It would be contrary to the dignity of the House to separate without accomplishing anything, leaving a legacy of hatred and ill-will to the people of the country.

§
Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment—
In line 10, to leave put from the word 'of' to the end of the proposed Amendment, and insert the words. ' persons to be appointed as hereinafter provided.'"—(Lord Edmund Fitz-maurice.)

§
Question proposed, "That the words 'a number of' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

(3.0.)MR. A. J. BALFOUK

I give to the noble Lord full credit for the spirit in which he has moved his Amendment—an Amendment which he has told us, I am sure with perfect sincerity, is not directed with any hostile intent against the policy of the Government. I think the noble Lord was guilty of some exaggeration when he described the present position of this Bill as one of confusion. It is a position of difficulty, simply because there is a very sharp difference of opinion on both sides of the House on a very important question. That I have sorrowfully to admit; but it is not really a position of confusion at all. The issues are perfectly plain. The drafting of the Bill as we propose it, is, I think, on perfectly sound lines; it does not throw any special difficulties in the way of our discussion, or any difficulties, which are not inherent in the subject; and it enables the issue to be taken in a convenient form. Therefore I do not admit that there is any confusion in our present position, and I do not see that if there were it would be remedied by deferring any further consideration of this Clause to the Autumn. If we are in a state of confusion at the end of July or
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the beginning of August, we should be equally in a state of confusion in the middle of October. But I do not think the noble Lord gave us what was his main object in moving this Amendment. It was not to call attention to what he describes as the present confused position of affairs. He had a larger and more generous motive than that which would appear from the mere criticism of the form of the proposal which the Government have laid on the table of the House. What is the noble Lord's suggestion? It is that we should stop discussing this difficult question now until the second week or third week in October. What is to be gained by that? According to him what is to be gained is that in the interval some inspiration will occur to some one on one side of the House or the other which will enable an agreement to be come to on a subject which so far, does not seem to admit of any satisfactory solution by way of common consent. I wish I could think that there was the smallest prospect that deferring the discussion would make it easier. Remember this is not a new controversy. The battlefield has been trampled on over and over again by the contending forces. Those engaged in this fight know every kopje, every rise in the ground, every point of vantage, and every strategical and tactical position as well as those occupied in sham fights at Aldershot know that well-accustomed sphere of operations. The thing has been threshed out and threshed out until I do not think there is a single new argument that can be adduced on either side, or a single solution perhaps which has not been canvassed, considered, and finally rejected by either one or other of the contending parties. I have already earlier today given the Committee some of the reasons which have led me to this melancholy conclusion, but it is a conclusion to which I am bound to come; and why we should expect that the wisdom of mankind during the four weeks of August, the four weeks of September, and the first fortnight of October should enable us to do what we have never been able to do on this subject, I cannot imagine. Why something is to occur in the seaside retreat of hon. Gentlemen, or in the
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course of their holiday trip abroad, which they have never been able to think of before really passes my understanding. May I make an observation to the House on a point to which the noble Lord has not referred, and of which perhaps indeed he was ignorant, which is that really the Government are not responsible for forcing this controversy on before the vacation. Some time ago there was one of those negotiations which occasionally take place, and often with much profit, between the authorised representatives of hon. Gentlemen opposite and ourselves as to the winding up of the business of this part of the session. I then proposed that Clause 7 should be passed, broadly speaking, in the form and on the lines on which it was originally put down in the Bill, that some other Government business should be got through, and that the fight should be taken upon Clause8. Well, that is very much what hon. Gentlemen now desire, but I proposed it and it was rejected. They refused to come into an arrangement of that kind. But now the noble Lord has suggested that it is all through our action that there has been imported into Clause 7 the detailed discussion of this question of management. If the noble Lord will refer to the notice paper as it was before I put this Amendment on the Paper, he will be entirely disabused of that notion if he ever entertained it. I should be very glad that the fight should not be taken on Clause 7, but that it should remain as it was originally intended to be, a sort of broad declaration of policy, and that the discussion should take place on Clause 8; and I was prepared, under perfectly reasonable conditions, to defer consideration of Clause 8 until after the holidays. But not only was that rejected, it became perfectly clear that no such proceeding on Clause 7 was possible. Every kind of alternative scheme was put down upon Clause 7 apart from Clause 8, and there was no method of preventing the discussion being held upon Clause 7. No doubt, as we had approached the Clause the fertility of invention of hon. Gentlemen opposite would have been stimulated, as it always has been on these occasions, and instead of two or three or four alternative schemes, we should have had
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half a dozen or a dozen, or, for all I know, two dozen. It was, therefore, perfectly plain that there was no chance, except by agreement, of deferring the detailed discussion of this matter until Clause 8, and that was refused. In the circumstances, I do not think we are to blame for any evils, if they are evils, which have occurred from the course we have pursued. I do not know, indeed, that any serious evils have occurred.

I do not in the least admit the statement the right hon. Gentleman makes to be a correct statement, so far as my knowledge goes, and in the absence of my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition.

Well, the right hon. Gentleman can give his version of the facts if he likes, but that is my recollection of what occurred. I do not say that it is particularly material What is material is that hon. Gentlemen would not allow us to escape discussion of this matter on Clause 7. That was quite clear from their Amendments.

I do not in the least understand that the statement, or the implied statement, of the hon. Gentleman is inconsistent with what I have said. Of course, if we had come to an agreement to pass Clause 7 in its original form those Amendments would have been withdrawn which were put down before the arrangement was suggested; but the arrangement was suggested, and was not agreed to.

At all events, that is what I believe to have occurred, and I shall be curious to know what the version of the right hon. Gentleman is. In any case, it is quite clear that unless hon. Gentlemen had been prepared to come to some such understanding as I proposed, we had no choice but to raise the discussion on Clause 7. Having got so far in that discussion as we have got, I think it would be a very bad arrangement of our business not to proceed with it on the present occasion.

said he wished to say at once what his impression was in this matter. In the first place, the arrangement to which the right hon. Gentleman referred included other matters as well as the Education Bill. He believed that an arrangement might have been come to in regard to the Education Bill, but, owing to the line that the right hon. Gentleman took upon the other matters, it was impossible to come to an agreement. Therefore, to represent the suggested arrangement as having gone off on the point of the Education Bill would be to convey an entirely erroneous impression to the House.

said that was so, but not on the point of the Education Bill, and that was the material point. It went off on another point altogether, relating to another Bill. In the second place, the suggestion that this vital question should be left over to be discussed at a later stage was one which could not prejudice the Opposition. It would perfectly have met their wish that such a matter should in one way or other be reserved instead of being decided before the recess. Upon that an arrangement might have been arrived at.

said the misfortune was that they all knew that these informal communications were open to the difficulty that they were not reduced to writing, and different people might
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carry away different impressions. He was giving his own impression, and he could safely say that he would never have thought that any difficulty would have been raised as to postponing the question they were now discussing if it could he arranged. He was anxious to lose no time in entirely disclaiming any such view of the negotiations referred to as the right hon. Gentleman had given.

said the reason the Amendments were put down was that those who put them down were advised that, if they did not put them down where they did, they would be ruled out of order. So far as they were concerned, they were quite willing that they should be discussed on Clause 8. When the Prime Minister's Amendment was put down, he thought the idea was that the whole of this question should he left until Clause 8 was discussed.

said that evidently there was not a clear understanding between the two front Benches, but, whatever the negotiations were, it was made abundantly clear directly the Prime Minister's Amendment began to he discussed that every one on the Opposition side of the House was ready to accept the postponement of these discussions until Clause 8. He regretted that there was any misunderstanding between the two front Benches. He thought it was becoming clear that on both sides of the House there were sections that would like to come to an understanding. There were those eighty-mysterious Gentlemen on the other side who were supposed to have sent to the Government a memorial in favour of public control. They had not, it was true, shown themselves very much in public. They had, he believed, occasionally abstained from voting when the Government had had the Irish Members on their side. He hoped, however, they
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were not mere vague sympathisers in the lobby, with ideas of public control. A good deal had been said about Nonconformists not being ready to come to an agreement with the supporters of the Church, but he thought that the motion passed by the Free Churches this week showed that there was, at any rate, a compromising attitude amongst Nonconformists. He thought that, if the reasonable men on both sides could meet in the autumn, they could devise some arrangement which would bring them nearer together than would the present proposals of the Government.

said from this side of the House the Bill was regarded as a compromise that encouraged denominational schools. One of the great benefits of the Bill was the extent to which the lay element would he introduced in future into these schools. He intensely disliked the "one-man" school, and he did not favour education being in the hands of a clerical party of any denomination. He approved of a strictly lay element, taking the view of the noble Lord opposite. At the present moment there was no proper control at all; they were providing schools under clerical control. That was a great misfortune, and an evil which ought to be remedied as soon as possible. With regard to secondary education, they should put these schools entirely under the public control. By this Bill they introduced the public element plus outside managers in place of the trust managers and those co-opted by them, and gave publicity and an element of public local feeling which exactly counterbalanced the evil of the existing system.

*THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out that the hon. Member was taking a rather wide view, having regard to the Amendment.

said if the Bill were to preserve denominational education, no compromise was possible in the sense which was suggested from the opposite Benches. In regard to the constitution of the management, it was necessary to face the question whether there was to be a majority on the one side or on the other. He hoped that it might be settled once for all in order to narrow the area, of sectarian controversy.

said he thought hon Members opposite really considered that the religious difficulty was the great difficulty of this Clause. That was not, in his opinion, the great difficulty. The great difficulty was one of more representative control. It was not a religious difficulty; it was a difficulty due to a sense of political inferiority, which was perpetuated under this management Clause. To keep closely to the Amendment of his noble friend, he thought there was more reason in it than the First Lord of the Treasury supposed. The right hon. Gentleman was so convinced that no compromise could be arrived at which would facilitate matters that he was quite sure that no inspiration could come to any one between now and the Autumn sitting which would be of any service.

said the right hon Gentleman had put the matter in a more general form than he could agree with. He was afraid he did not believe in the possibility of compromise on this particular question, but there would be plenty of matters later on which he thought a compromise might be reached.

said he was dealing with this particular question. He could not help thinking that a time of relaxation and refreshment, which would be especially welcome to the Government, might produce a little more elasticity of mind than hon. Members now possessed. He would admit frankly that, if the first Lord of the Treasury was prepared to stick literally to this particular Clause as it now stood on the Paper—his own Amendment—and was quite convinced that no modification could be made in it, there was no reason why he should accept the Amendment of his noble friend, because, if that was so, hon. Members on that side would continue to fight in that House, whether the struggle went on now or in the Autumn, and when that fight was over they would continue to fight in the country. But he thought it was possible that the controversy might be at any rate softened. He did not believe any compromise was possible which
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would produce unanimity; but the hon. Gentleman the Member for London University had outlined a compromise which in his opinion, from the point of view of people who approached this question from the same point of view as himself, would meet their requirements. He did not think such a compromise as was outlined would produce unanimity in the House;, but it would take away a good deal of the existing bitterness if some compromise of the kind were tabled by the Government, and were allowed to stand before the country between now and autumn. The House might meet with a chance—he did not say of unanimity— but of having less bitter and prolonged discussion. He did not think unanimity would be produced by any compromise of that kind. He thought the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich would probably tell against it, and that he might possibly be joined as teller by some Nonconformist from that side of the House. As the noble Lord himself had pointed out, he had in this matter a singular affinity to Nonconformists. He preferred a distinguished Nonconformist divine to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Haddington. So far as the religious question was concerned, there would probably be, even after a compromise like that suggested by the hon. Member for London University had been tabled. Members on each side who would not accept it. But he believed that in the interests of education it would really be worth while to put something of that kind before the country. So far as the Opposition were concerned, from the party point of view, he had no desire whatever that that should be done. They were perfectly content to fight the Clause as it stood, there and outside; but, from an educational point of view, it was a great pity. He joined entirely with the Member for London University in his desire that the Education Bill, which did contain some elements of good, should not go out to the country with this flavour of injustice about it, but should retain something which would remove, if not the religious, at any rate the political, grievance, and which would have a better chance of doing good educational work from the fact that it took an acceptable form.

joined in the appeal of the noble Lord the Member for Cricklade to the Government that this important part of the Bill should be carried over to the Autumn session. If the right hon. Gentleman inquired why such a course; should be adopted he would respectfully inform him that if the Bill were carried an its present form it would be rendered unworkable by a large class of the community. He was well aware that the Free Church men were not a majority in the country, but he did not think that the strong opinions of a large proportion of the people should not be taken into account. While the Anglican Church was attended by those who supported it on conscientious grounds, it was also supported by many simply for social and political reasons. But the despised Dissenters, the people who were known by negative names, had no inducement to defend their faith and order except that of conviction, and they might be set against those earnest and convinced Churchmen who had shown a great desire to pass this Clause in its present form. He had not much sympathy with those who believed that the denominational system could be cleared away, or that the strong opinions of a large proportion of the people of the country should not be taken into account by Nonconformists. A system had to be found under which the Government in the State schools should recognise the views of both sides. Attempts had been made to reconcile the conflicting views, and there were indications that to effect such a reconciliation was not beyond the power of sensible men. But the sense of pressure and of indifference to compromise which would be felt by Nonconformists if the Clause were forced through in a sitting or two would greatly stand in the way of such a reconciliation. It had been said that if the Bill were carried without compromise Free Churchmen would resort, by organisation, to the non-payment of rates. He could not recommend such a course until every other expedient had been tried. As loyal citizens they had no moral right to do that except in the last extremity. It was a form of war, and under the democratic constitution of this country such
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an expedient ought not to be lightly resorted to. But apart from that, there was throughout the country an organisation not intended primarily for political purposes, but which would undoubtedly be used, if this Bill were passed, for the purpose of watching its operation and exposing every deviation from just and fair treatment of Nonconformists. This controversy would be carried into all the parishes of England, and it would enter into all County Council and municipal elections, to the detriment of other and more important questions. He had not the slightest doubt that after a great deal of heat had been shown and a great deal of time lost this principle would be abandoned for something of a more impartial and national character. The fact that this was a religious question in education would render it incapable of compromise in the country unless the House of Commons had the good sense to come to some conclusion itself. If the Government insisted on carrying the Clause through by means of the closure they would extinguish the spirit of compromise which now existed on both sides, and would have to take the consequences of any agitation which might ensue.

said it must be quite evident that the Government did not intend to accept the noble Lord's Amendment; and after very careful consideration of the Bill and of this particular Clause he had to come to the conclusion reluctantly that the Government were, in his judgment, wise and prudent in adhering to the Clause in its present form. He recognised that the position the Government were taking up today, that where public elementary schools were supported out of the public revenue they should be controlled by a majority of a privileged section of the community, was an untenable one which could not last permanently in the future. He believed that to be opposed to the constitutional system which had taken such deep root in the country. He did not say this as an opponent of denominational teaching—he was one of its many advocates—but because he believed that in the long run religious teaching would
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be better maintained by a species of popular control than by an artifically manufactured control. The religious sentiment of the country was founded en a far surer basis than this Bill or any Government could provide. It was strong and deep rooted, and would be maintained, not by any prescribed form of Government, but by the zeal and fervour of the advocates of religion, who formed a great preponderance of the people of the country. He appreciated the arguments of the Prime Minister, but he was confident that the local managers would have considerable power, and he thought that for peace, harmony, good education, and certainly for the highest order of religion, it would be better to allow the people of a district to have a reasonable voice in the administration of its education. As an ideal popular control he would like to see a combination of Church managers and gentlemen appointed by the education authority forming the majority of the Board. He believed in the infusion of popular control, but did not believe that the moment had arrived when the Government could go the length of giving full control. Their patriotic action in taking up this difficult question in the face of the controversy and religious passion which they knew it must arouse did them credit, and it should be recognised that they had gone a long way in the desired direction. Under the present Bill there would be a great deal of public control as compared with what there had been before. The clerical element would be relegated from a first place to a second place in educational control throughout the length and breadth of the country. Had hon. Gentlemen opposite who talked of a Nonconformist revolt ever looked at the other side of the question so far as to consider what a Church revolt in this country would mean? If full popular control were now given there would be a great deal more justification for those who were strong adherents of the Church to revolt than for Nonconformists. The Government might incur temporary unpopularity by their action, but he would sooner see repetitions of Leeds victories next year than he would see a Church revolt in this country. The measure
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would bring about, by gradual and imperceptible means, the reforms that were desired. The mere operation of the Bill must inevitably result in more popular control being realised. In the circumstances in which the Government were placed, he had no doubt they were pursuing a wise, prudent, and statesmanlike course in adhering to their proposals, in which they had conceded as much as they could with safety, for the present.

We have just listened to a very remarkable speech. The hon. Member began by stating that, in his opinion, the principles involved in this Clause were untenable, that they were contrary to just principles, that it was unconstitutional to refuse a proper amount of control over the expenditure of public money. Having avowed that in his opinion the Bill was so faulty, so vicious in its principles, that within a year or two it ought to be revoked, he yet thinks it a wise, statesmanlike, and prudent policy on the part of the Government to persist in forcing a Bill of that description through the House. It is a remarkable conclusion. To launch a scheme of national education founded on false principles at this time of day is the most unwise and mischievous thing from any point of view that can possibly be done. The speech of the hon. Baronet entirely justifies the demand we make that more time should be taken for the consideration of the principles of this Bill and this Clause. What is the issue in this Clause in its present form? It is whether what the hon. Baronet has rightly called a privileged class should have a majority of two to one in the control of a system of education, to the cost of which they have contributed, or will contribute, only a comparatively insignificant fraction.

I should be glad to think that the right hon.
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Gentleman who has got a majority approaching two to one has no control. It would be greatly to the public advantage. Having sat in this House for some years, I have always found that a party which had a majority of much less than two to one had practically the control of public affairs and of the policy to be pursued, and therefore he must excuse me for still remaining of the opinion that if the managers under this Clause, and this particular class of managers, should have a majority of two to one they would practically control the schools. If that be the fact then, this is the crying injustice of the policy of this Bill, it is giving to a privileged class the control of these schools. As the hon. Baronet properly said, that offends against the fundamental principles of justice and of sound finance. That is our position. The hon. Baronet says in that we are perfectly right, and the opposite of that is perfectly untenable. That justifies the, determined position we have taken in this House and that we shall continue to maintain in this House, and which we shall continue to maintain in the country until this injustice is altered. The hon. Baronet has admitted that it must be altered. That is the justification of the whole agitation which this Clause will produce. What is the object of the Amendment of my noble friend? It is to ask the Government not to conclude the controversy by determining without further consideration such an issue as this. There is a great body of opinion in this country which desires some settlement not involving such an injustice, such a false principle as the Clause proposes, and which, if passed into law, will lead to bitter opposition and a determination to secure its nullifaction and revocation. Such a determination there ought to be. That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the hon. Baronet's speech. I do believe that if the Government would keep, I do not know whether I ought to call it an open mind, but, at least, a mind on the jar on this question, they might do a good deal to mollify, if not to nullify, this agitation. If the sentiment of Leeds pervades the country largely, would it not be better to do something, such as is now suggested, before you have taken an irrevocable step? If you
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insist within the next two or three days-on this injustice, how is it to be cured, as the hon. Baronet thinks it should be cured, at |an early period? If you do insist on forcing the Bill through with, this unjust and false principle, it is not merely the religious difficulty which you raise. It is a question of principle which affects people of all religious opinions. It is the question whether the money of the taxpayers should be taken and devoted to the purposes of a particular class without proper and effective control over it. That is the principle which is violated by this Bill, and that is why the Bill is met with a feeling of repugnance throughout the country. As my right hon. friend has said, from a party point of view we could wish that the Government would obstinately persist in their present course, for we know the effect it would produce. Yet, in the greater cause of education I should deplore it, and look forward with no satisfaction to the bitter, relentless warfare to which this Clause must necessarily give vise. Therefore, I again express a hope that the Government will give time for the sound, the moderate, and, I believe, the overwhelming opinion of the country to prevail in the settlement upon which a great Education Bill should be founded. You ought not to throw the great cause of education into this bitter conflict which will certainly arise out of this Bill if wiser counsels do not prevail, and which might otherwise be a measure more worthy of the House of Commons, and one which would make an honourable settlement of this great education question.

said this Amendment dealt in the first place with a question of principle; and secondly with expediency and time. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Berwick talked about this Amendment of the Prime Minister's as not giving more popular control. A man spoke of more popular control as distinguished from popular control advisably. It was a matter of sincere opinion and not of verbiage. When the hon. Baronet opposite proposed to give the local authority control over that for which it did not pay, then he was making a rather serious difference in the matter of principle which he raised. As to the question of time and expediency the right
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hon. Gentleman let slip the expression that if the Committee adopted this Clause now they would be taking an irrevocable step. Why did the right hon. Gentleman think that Putting aside the fact that there were other stages of the Bill, could not Parliament undo what Parliament had done? Then this was not an irrevocable step. Well enough he knew why it had been so referred to. Because the right hon. Gentleman knew that when the Bill met the test of experience, when it had received trial over a course of years and was free from misdescription for election purposes, this agitation would, as many Members had privately expressed the opinion it would, "end in a fizzle." The House would do well to come to a decision now and not to postpone it, if only for the reason that if a compromise were required there would be a datum line upon which to proceed. The House should take take that decision undeterred by passing clamour and outside misrepresentation.

explained why he could not support the Amendment. He saw no evidence of the presence of the spirit of compromise. If he thought a postponement of this most burning question until the autumn would bring about a compromise he would support the proposal, but it was plain the issue would have to be fought out. He feared that the result would not be permanent; he had listened with misgiving to the view expressed that the settlement would last for only a few years and end in complete popular control of denominational schools. That was what he feared. It was perfectly plain compromise was not in the air, and the matter must be fought out. The speech of the Prime Minister sounded in his ears like a declaration of despair. He said compromise was impossible.

said compromise was impossible because it was sought on the wrong lines, and the Government, by insisting on applying one cast-iron system to schools differently situated, slammed the door in the face of compromise. He was convinced that the time would come when the friends of denominational schools, and some of his own Church
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who thought he went too far last Wednesday, would regret that his Amendment was not accepted, and would see that by refusing it they had thrown away one of the last chances for denominational schools. He took a gloomy view of the future or these schools, and feared them passing under the complete control of the local educational authority. He wished to make it clear that the managers of denominational schools should retain some power, and he was afraid that the Government were giving away the whole control and independence of voluntary schools in the near future to the local educational authority who, under the guise of unlimited and complete control of the secular education, would very soon take over, by the power of the purse, the absolute control of the denominational schools.

said he understood the Prime Minister to say that he would never consent that any school with a denominational character should have that denominational character taken a way from it, notwithstanding that the whole maintenance of the school was paid for out of the public funds, and notwithstanding that the local conditions might be such that the vast majority of the parents would prefer the school not to have the denominational character which it now possessed. That he understood was a subject upon which the right hon. Gentleman admitted there was no compromise. The right hon. Gentleman would not agree that anyone of the tour-teen thousand of the denominational schools should be managed by any one but a majority of denominational managers. The right hon. Gentleman would remember that the Liberal Party held very strong views upon the principle of public control of public expenditure. In the interests of education and of peace they had now offered to continue the compromise which was made many years ago, and they had even offered to go beyond it. Nevertheless the First Lord of the Treasury would not abate one jot or tittle of the principle on which he had taken his stand. Was that reasonable, or was it likely to conduce to the success of education in this country?
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The Prime Minister would have to give way upon this point, and he was bound to give way. Leeds had been his Belmont, later on he would have his Modder River, followed by his Magersfontein, but his educational Kimberley would not be relieved until a compromise had been arrived at. No one denied that there were some good things in this Bill, but if the Prime Minister wished the Measure to work well, he must accept a compromise on that principle upon which he would accept nothing now. The right hon. Gentleman told them that it was only in an insignificant number of cases where the Church party were in a majority. What was offered as a compromise? The proposal was for two out of six permanent Members who should be of a denominational character. The right hon. Gentleman was only asked now to take the risk that the local authority would appoint one single, Member out of four to be of the existing denominational character, but he feared that if ho allowed any element of public, election he could not even secure one out of four of a denominational character. If that was the state of public feeling in the locality, how did the right hon. Gentleman imagine his Bill was going to work when he dared not trust the public now? If the right hon. Gentleman believed in this principle why would he not trust the education authority to give one out of four representative managers of a denominational character Why would he not give to the minor or educational authority the power to choose one out of four denominational managers? If the right hon. Gentleman insisted upon this Bill passing as it stood it could not be a permanent measure. Many hon. Members felt that they had already been going far beyond the wishes of their constituents in consenting to any sort of compromise, but if the right hon. Gentleman refused this offer now they would have to take their stand upon the extreme issue.

appealed to the Committee not to have a Second Heading debate on every Amendment. He quite recognised how much interest was excited and he did not wish to minimise it, but surely they might confine themselves more strictly to the point, at any rate.

said that the acceptance of this Amendment would put Clause 7 back into its original form with, the advantage to the Government that it I would exclude all the Amendments which had been put down to it, and which, he understood the Prime Minister to say, he would prefer on Clause 8. If by accepting the Amendment Clause 7 could be passed that afternoon and other business proceeded with next week, leaving Clause 8, with its details of representation, and so on, to be discussed in the Autumn session, it would be for the benefit of the-Bill and the convenience of the House. Any attempt to pass the Prime Minister's Amendment, as it stood now, bringing in the whole question of representation, before the House rose next week, would be fraught with very great difficulty. And, even if the attempt were successful, it was bound to be presented to the country that this most difficult and contentious part of the Bill had been forced through either by closure or all-night sittings at the fag end of the session. He felt very strongly on this representation Clause, and was convinced that it would be a great disadvantage if it were placed before the country in that light. He would, therefore, join in the appeal that had been made to the Prime Minister to accept the Amendment and leave this most contentious part of the Bill until the Autumn. He had a firm hope that some compromise between the moderate men on both sides ought to be, and was possible in the interests of education, and he would go further and say in the interests of the Church as well. He believed the Church itself would flourish and increase its influence in the country much more by accepting freely such a compromise as had been suggested than by forcing through a Clause like this.

said he would like to remind the Committee that the question on which they were going to divide was not the mode of managing the schools, or whether there should be a majority of one kind or another, but whether this part of the Bill; should stand over until the Autumn session. The Prime Minister had said that this was not a new controversy, but that it had been fought over and over again. He had no recollection that on any
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previous occasion had this controversy arisen or been fought out. The controversies of 1870 were not the controversies they were now engaged in, for at no previous time had it ever been proposed by any Government that the entire cost of privately-managed schools should be defrayed out of public funds. They had heard before of rate-aid but they had never heard before of all the funds of voluntary schools being supplied out of public money.

said it appeared to him that that was what was being done. As far as he remembered this point had never been discussed in any Bill before in the House of Commons. He did not think, candidly, that that afternoon's debate had tended to compromise; he did not think it encouraged one's hopes of compromise; but it very much strengthened, in his judgment, the wisdom of postponing their decision. He was satisfied himself that there were only two points involved in this dispute—the one was the popular control of public money and the other was the maintenance of the religion of the denominational schools in the hands of denominational bodies. The point was whether reasonable men, not the extremists on both sides, could come to an agreement on these two questions. There was a belief among large sections of the House that this, the most contested part of the Bill, which was most likely to arouse bitterness on both sides, which would be antagonistic to education and which would delay the reform which they were all anxious to secure, had not been sufficiently thought out and discussed in the country to enable the one side or the other to say that compromise was impossible. He did not attach much importance to the negotiations which took place during the heat of debate. The hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford seemed to attribute to him that he was ignorant of what was going on, but he might remind the right hon. Gentleman that he had heard a good deal, and perhaps rather more than he gave him credit for. Public opinion, if rightly guided and properly
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informed, would tend to promote a solution which they might discuss in a better frame of mind after the recess. The Prime Minister had already said that he was ready to take Clause 7 as it originally stood, and postpone the whole of this question to Clause 8.

Yes, but not as any part of an arrangement germane to the Education Bill. Let them look at the question as a mere matter of the business of the House. That was Friday, and the present arrangement was to adjourn next Friday. In the interval, they were to have two days devoted to Supply; there were the various stages of the Appropriation Bill, and there were a number of departmental measures which, although they might not involve much discussion, would necessarily occupy some time. He could not see why, apart from all desire of compromise, the Prime Minister should insist on this Clause now; he was certain that he would lose time by it in the long run. He noticed that the right hon. Gentleman said he proposed to take the evening sitting next Wednesday. But the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill, as far as his recollection went, had always had a day allotted to it, and a morning and evening sitting, according to the right hon. Gentleman's own standing orders, formed but one day. There were questions on the Appropriation Bill which necessarily had not been discussed in the course of Supply—questions ranging over a wide field of politics. It was a hopeless impossibility that the right hon. Gentleman should get any time on Wednesday. At this particular moment, and in the particular stress of public opinion on this subject, was it just or right that the Clause should be forced through by extraordinary means which the House did not resort to except under very exceptional circumstances? He did not believe that the right hon. Gentleman would resort to those means, and he did not believe that this Clause would be got before the adjournment. At the same time, the refusal to grant time for a compromise looked very much
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like the refusal of a compromise altogether, and it would cripple and disable those who were anxious to get a fair and just settlement of the question.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury to consider the appeal which had been made to him to give time for the consideration of the question not merely by Nonconformists, but by the general body of sensible churchmen in the country. They should have the opportunity of considering the terms offered by those on the Opposition side of the House. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had not quite done justice to those terms, and the country should have time to think out the offer. He would assume that the terms were:—one-third to be appointed by the trustees, one-third by the education authority, and one-third by the local authority. That seemed to be the general idea. He wanted the church people in the country to have the opportunity of thinking how that would work. It had been said by the First Lord that it would break down the denominational character of the schools. He did not think there was the slightest danger of that. He considered what was proposed from this side of the House a just and fail1 bargain which would preserve the denominational character of the schools, but the hon. Member for Tunbridge and the hon. Member for Oxford had spoken as though it would at once mean a majority against denominational teaching. Nothing of the kind. It might be thought from the debates that the Opposition consisted of Welshmen and Scotchmen, but that really was not so. After all there was a small country called England, and he thought if they could get a Bill to work well for England as a whole it would be a satisfactory Bill. Speaking as a churchman he thought churchmen might safely accept the compromise which was offered.

said his only apology for intervening as a Welsh Member in the debate was that the majority of Welsh members had repudiated this proposal in every division that had taken place upon it, and he had good reason to believe that what Wales thought today England would think tomorrow. This was the last Amendment on which
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there could be a discussion on the tender of compromise offered to the other side. The Prime Minister had not merely refused every suggestion of compromise made across the floor of the House, he had also rejected overtures to consider a compromise.

Yes, because it was no good considering a compromise after the thing was passed. The hon. Baronet the Member for the Chippenham Division in his able and interesting speech had excommunicated him from the communion of reasonable men, and yet he agreed with the hon. Baronet's speech. He agreed with his arguments, but differed from his conclusion. The hon. Baronet, attacked the Bill, but said he would support it. He did not know whether that was an indication of a reasonable frame of mind. If it was he was very glad to be outside that very select society. There had been all sorts of plans suggested for compromise, and he had supported them all, and shown that, so far as the Nonconformists were concerned, they were seeking some means of agreeing. The right hon. Gentleman said, first of all, that every plan had been devised, and then he said that if he allowed another two months the fertility of hon. Members would be so stimulated that they would have a dozen more plans.

thought the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken. He took down the words. The right hon. Gentleman said that the fertility of hon. Members outside would be stimulated by the Autumn recess, and that they might have a dozen more plans.

thought it was a very good argument himself. He
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thought the delay would enable them to apply their minds freshly to the subject. The arguments did not all come from that side of the House, and his own opinion was that the Autumn would produce a reasonable frame of mind. He thought there would be an atmosphere during the next two months, conducive to such a frame of mind on the part of hon. Members opposite; the breath to create the atmosphere started in Leeds, and he believed it would sweep over the country, and therefore an Autumn session would be a very good time for discussing this plan. The hon. Member opposite said—What if Churchmen revolted? He thought they had greater grievances than the Nonconformists. Was not that enough to show that the Bill satisfied nobody? Everybody was now said to be discontented and bordering on rebellion. What an argument against the Bill ! Here was a Bill which created a grievance so acute on both sides that everybody revolted against it. They might yet see the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich and himself fighting in the same army, each in charge of a commando against the Bill, and between them they might yet bring the walls of

§
Jericho down. What was going to happen? If the Prime Minister insisted on forcing the Clause through, they might have the unseemliness of heated discussion projected to a time within twenty-four hours of the Coronation. Was that a state of things that anybody desired? Was it not better that it should be put off? From their point of view this was the most exasperating Clause of the whole Bill. The Government must know that they were forcing this thing through now, not merely against the opinion of Wales, but against the opinion of their own countrymen. It was an unconstitutional proceeding. Time ought to be given to hon. Members to go and consult their constituencies, but the Government would not give it, because they knew what the answer would be. The Campanile was crumbling, and the right hon. Gentleman knew perfectly well that in a short time it would be down.

moved an Amendment to provide that a trust manager should not be disqualified from acting as a manager because he was not a Church communicant. It was not desirable that any religious test or disability should be introduced in the question of managing schools. The work was purely secular, and, personally, he would be glad to have things as they were. But if alterations were to be brought about, he should prefer to leave the whole subject to the County Council and to local discretion.

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Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment,
In line 10, to leave out the words 'a number of trust.' "—(Sir Edward Strachey)

said that it seemed to him that some words must be inserted to differentiate the four managers elected to represent the owners of the schools from the two managers who were to be elected by a different method. The hon. Member might think the word "trust" an inconvenient epithet, but he did not think that a better could be substituted.

said that some managers were not trust managers at all, and in these cases the term would be inapplicable. A great many schools had no trustees and no trust, and though the Board of Education might make an order and might create managers they would not be trustees. It was undesirable, he thought, that the term "trust" managers should be applied to all cases where there were not managers in the very well-defined position of trustees.

said he hoped that the hon. Member would not persevere with his Amendment. He thought that the term "trust" manager was a convenient phrase which aptly described what those persons were to be, and he
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believed that time should not be spent in discussing what was only a mere matter of terminology.

said that this question of terminology made all the difference in the world between sense and nonsense. There were many cases in which there was not a single trust manager, and his hon. friend was right in asking the Committee to strike out the word "trust" as being incapable of interpretation in such cases

MR ALFRED BUTTON(Yorkshire, W.R., Morley)

said he begged to suggest that the word "denominational" should be inserted instead of "trust," as being a truer recognition of the facts of the situation. He did not think that there should be all these religious tests applicable to the managers of the schools.

said: Oh, but it was. Would it be vested in the trust managers alone? If the managers, appointed by the local authority were to have less power than the other managers, the Government ought to say so. Surely it was not contemplated by the Government that there should be two sets of managers !

said that this was
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another illustration of the loose way in which the Bill had been drawn. The Government had evidently not had time to think out their own proposals, and it was quite obvious that they had put an Amendment on the Paper without considering its effect.

said that the phrase "foundation managers" would be more appropriate, as avoiding confusion with "trustees." There were a great many of these schools which had not denominational managers, but in every case there would be some "foundation managers."

moved to omit the words ''not exceeding four" after the words "consisting of a number of trust managers." He pointed out that while six managers might be a reasonable number in a small parish, twelve, or even fifteen, would not be too many in a large and scattered parish.

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Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment,
In line 10, to leave out the words 'not exceeding four.' "—(Mr. Humphreys-Owen.)

submitted that only the words "not exceeding" should have been put from the Chair, as the question of proportion and the fixing of the numbers were different questions. The hon. Member who had moved the Amendment had confined his remarks entirely to the question of proportion, and there was no doubt that he had moved "not exceeding four" by mistake.

said that, in moving the Amendment, his hon. friend had entirely confined himself to the question of proportion, and it was to that point he now desired to direct attention. He hoped in this matter the right hon. Gentleman would be willing to listen to the arguments which had been addressed to him, with the same effect as he had to those which had been addressed to him on a previous part of the Amendment. In the original Amendment, as it appeared on the Paper, it was limited to the case of boroughs and County Councils, and he wished to give complete elasticity of numbers. They could not take the county where the voluntary schools were as requiring a fixed number of managers, because it would be obvious that in a large number of cases under this Bill there might be too many managers, and in other cases there might be too few.

said, as there seemed to be some doubt, he desired to know what they were discussing. There were two points; there was the small debate raised on the words "not exceeding," and the big debate on the question of "four," which raised a far wider issue.
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Were they now to confine themselves to "not exceeding," and could they afterwards debate "four"?

having regard to the doubts that had arisen, appealed to the Prime Minister to allow the question to be re-stated from the Chair, so that they might first discuss the words "not exceeding" and take the grave question of the number "four" subsequently. The right hon Gentleman would see that it was to the interest of the Committee that this matter should be discussed in proper form.

said he was asked to give away, so far as it rested with him, any advantage the Government might obtain in the way of shortening the debate by the particular form in which the hon. Gentleman opposite had moved his Amendment.

said the Amendment was down upon the Paper, was considered, and was moved by the hon. Gentleman. He did not wish to make any criticisms, but it must be admitted that there had not been a great desire on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite to hasten the progress of the debate, or to bring great issues clearly before the House.

said if it was understood that there would be a real desire to press on with the debate, he was perfectly ready to assent. On the understanding that the discussion of the word "four" should be proceeded with, and that the hon. Gentleman if he withdrew it would not move it in a new form, he was ready to allow the hon. Member to withdraw the Amendment.

expressed the opinion that the statement of the Prime Minister was a very fair one. The understanding was that there was a desire to have a discussion on the main issue, and not to have it complicated with two minor questions, and that the Committee should therefore proceed with the discussion on "four."

asked whether it was not the practice in this House, when an Amendment was made to safeguard a subsequent Amendment, that the question put from the Chair was the words "not exceeding," in order to safeguard the next Amendment.

*THE CHAIRMAN

said he did not think the hon. Member was in the House when the question was raised, and therefore had not heard what had been said.

moved to leave out "four" in order to insert "one-third." He said the question to be discussed now was the question of whether the majority of four I to two in favour of the denominational managers, or two-thirds of the management of the schools, should be given to the private denominational interest, and one-third to the public interest. This question could be discussed from many points of view; Non conformist, public authority, and the general interest which every citizen had in the principle of local control over public funds. He proposed to address himself to the last aspect. All Members would recognise that for a long time the Government had proposed that a considerable sum of public money should be spent for one purpose, and that an Act of Parliament should be passed limiting
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the public control over the expenditure of that money to one-third. He submitted that the proposal of the Government was novel in the history of local government, and if it were suggested, say, in connection with Poor Law administration, it would be laughed out of the House. It was not sufficient for the right hon. Gentleman to say, "We give the authority to the County Council, that has supreme and absolute power." The authority which came into close contact with the expenditure would be the Committee, and it would be difficult to persuade villagers who had no direct representation on the County Council that the authority which controlled the schools was not the body which came to thorn from day to day. It was said that they had adequate safeguards in the inspection of the schools, but the villagers regarded the managers of the moment as the persons who had the control of the school, and under this Bill they would be regarded as the living representatives of the public interest. And as a matter of fact the real effective control would be in the hands of these men. It was not right that the affairs of the school should be handed over to a body on which the public interest was only one-third and the denominational interest two-thirds. When the Education Department had to face the many questions that would arise between them and the County Councils, they would find it difficult to always uphold the rights of local authorities as against the local managers, who would always have the predominant influence in the management of the schools. He submitted that the public interest should have the majority in this matter with regard to; the administration of the schools. He contended that when the Bill was passed into law, unless the public interest had the majority, it would be a constant source of injustice; that there would be constant friction, and he thought it wouid be a dangerous policy on the part of the Government to compel the Committee by this Bill to sanction a method of managing the schools which would prolong an injustice felt at the present time in thousands of towns and villages throughout the country. These grievances had been borne by the people of this country for the last thirty years,
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and the fact that the right hon Gentleman, had recognised for so long a time that this grievance had existed, rather added to the burden they had borne. Now that the Government had an opportunity of remedying these grievances, they neglected to remedy them and inflicted a new grievance upon the great bulk of those interested in the management of the schools. He hoped when the right hon. Gentleman came to consider the matter he would recognise that the public interest was supreme, and he would not refuse to allow it the right of administering education.

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Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment—
In line 10, to leave out the word 'fouiy,' and insert the words 'one-third,' "—(Mr. Alfred Hutton.)

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Question proposed, "That the word 'four' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

said they should now be able to test under this proposal whether the Prime Minister meant what he said when he declared that some relief should be given to Non-conformists in rural districts. When it was proposed to continue the management on practically the same lines as heretofore, it was impossible to say there was any modicum of relief. The provision they were now discussing indicated the way in which these four persons would be selected. The control would be maintained, in the same ecclesiastical groove, because the four trustees were to be nominated by the existing managers of the schools. He observed that the Clause which had been put on the Paper even extended these powers of appointment. There were thousands of schools in the rural districts in which the teaching under the existing management was thoroughly obnoxious to the parents, and that system of ecclesiastical authority in the rural schools would be perpetuated if the Amendment wore rejected. The four persons provided by this Clause, in the majority of these schools in rural districts, would be trustees appointed under the trust deeds of the National Society; and the primary object of that society was not to find children secular instruction, but to bring them up in accordance with the views of a particular church.
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These were to be the protectors of the education of village children, 60 or 80 per cent, of whom were the children of parents who did not belong to the Church of England, who wanted to have nothing to do with the Church of England, but who at the same time did desire to have plain Scriptural teaching in the schools. The way in which the Government had tightly held to this provision and rejected every proposal to modify it, justified him in saying that the promise held out by the Prime Minister when introducing the Bill that he was going to give something that would meet the grievance of Nonconformists on, this issue, had not been fulfilled. This was the most serious question which came before the governing authority of the Wesleyan Methodist Church a few days ago, when, after a battle royal with the Government's old friend, the Rev. Dr. Waller, by a majority of 471 against 60, composed of men coming from all parts of the country, they affirmed the claim for a locally appointed majority on the management of these schools, and they were perfectly prepared to extend the same principle to the 700 schools of the Wesleyan Church, because they believed there was rio danger of injustice being done.

understood the argument of the hon Member to be that where the ratepayer and the taxpayer found the greater part of the funds required to keep a school going, that school should be managed popularly, and without any control as regarded religious matters on the part of those who founded the school and had expended their substance in building it.

said that was what he intended to convey. The hon. Gentleman was prepared to see the whole teaching, religious and secular, handed over to a body, a majority of which were popularly elected. The hon. Member showed great confidence in popularly elected bodies, which, no
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doubt, was right enough if all he had to put confidence in was the rectitude of purpose of those bodies. But if the principle which the hon. Gentleman recommended were adopted, he could not complain if the popularly-elected body to whom he would hand over the control of the schools were to say, in the case of the Wesleyan schools, that the Church Catechism, or no religion at all, or some doctrine inconsistent with the views of the Wesleyan founders of the schools, should be taught in them.

said that the Wesleyan Conference coupled with the acceptance of control of their schools by a popularly-elected body, Bible teaching, just as they had it under the School Board system in their schools.

said the hon. Member opposite went on to complain that promises were made to Nonconformists which were not fulfilled. What were they? They were to the effect that the grievance under which Nonconformists laboured in the existing system of education would be largely mitigated by this Bill. He still held to the opinion which he expressed in the earlier stages of the Bill, that the Bill, even in its present form, would mitigate the grievances under which the Noncon formists laboured in the matter of education; and those grievances would he still more mitigated by the changes which would be introduced into the Bill before long by common consent. What had the Nonconformists complained of? Amongst other things they complained that in some districts the whole education and the appointment of the teachers rested in the hands of a single man. That
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would not be the case under the Clause as they presented it. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think that under the new Clause, which it would be very improper for him to discuss at any length now, that two representatives would be the parson and the curate, and the others the Churchwardens. He did not think it would be the case at all. It would be the duty of the Board of Education to see that some proper proportion was kept between the subscribing element and the public and clergy and all the other persons mentioned in the trust deed.

said that was not the Clause as it stood upon the Paper, which provided that the trustees should be the managers; and it was only in a certain event that there would be an appeal to the Education Department.

thought it would be perfectly safe to say that whenever the number of the trustees amounted to six, and when there were only four representing the denomination, there would not be more than one person in holy orders. That, therefore, would be a very great change. The other grievance of Nonconformitsrelated to pupil teachers and their education. He thought that when this Bill had passed it would be found that this grievance, if it was not entirely removed, would undoubtedly and unquestionably be enormously diminished. He would now deal with that part of the Measure which dealt with another aspect of the question—he meant the constitutional aspect If he understood the hon. Member for the Morley Division rightly, his main objection to this provision was, that it violated the principle that where an institution was entirely supported out of public funds there the whole control should be in the hands of the public. Let them examine that proposition for a very few moments. In the first place, the whole of the funds were not provided by the local authority. The hon. Gentleman himself had mentioned a Wesleyan school where they had spent £6,000 upon a building. Was that expenditure to be ignored in an institution of that kind? Surely where private persons had given a building of that kind it could not be
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brought into the same line as works of public utility. Therefore that contention of the hon. Member fell to the ground and would not rank with the poor law institutions of the country of which he spoke, and of which the cost of maintenance and the buildings were supplied from public sources. The next argument put forward was that there ought to be a majority of elected persons on the Board of Management because so much of the funds were contributed by the public. The hon. Member's argument on this point would not hold water, because the rate raising body was the Council and not the parish. There was no proposition which he was prepared more strenuously to resist than that which underlay the whole argument of the hon. Gentleman—namely, that the county was to raise the money and the parish was to spend it. That was not a constitutional doctrine which anybody in this House ought to contend for. There was another fundamental fallacy of his argument, and it was that the managers, whether elected or not, were not the people who spent the money. The educational authority spent the money, and they were an elected body, and if that be so then representation and taxation went together in this case more absolutely than in any other case which had been mentioned. The hon Gentleman opposite used one argument which was a most extraordinary one. He asked what was the use of talking about the education authority because they would never persuade the managers that they were not responsible; because they would not know that the education authority existed; and, therefore, the whole Bill was so framed that they never would understand this. He did not like those arguments. There were many such arguments which had been used in this debate, and he did not like them, because they insinuated either cowardice or stupidity on the part of his fellow countrymen. He did not believe that the English labourer trembled before the parson, and he did not believe that the English labourer was so ignorant as to be incapable of understanding who was really the authority which governed education matters in the county. He hoped the Committee would adhere to a proportion of managers which would not interfere
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with the power of the education authority in a county or borough to manage the whole of secondary education in their district, but which did safeguard the denominational interests of those who had made great sacrifices to erect the school.

said there was nothing more which they admired in the First Lord of the Treasury than his happy facility in arguing different Amendments with a totally different set of arguments.—[Ministerial cries of "Hear, hear!" and laughter.] Hon. Members had not allowed him to finish his sentence. What he was going to say was that they all admired the happy facility of the right hon. Gentleman in arguing different Amendments with a totally different set of arguments, the second set being entirelyinconsistent with those which he used on former Amendments. When the right hon. Gentleman was arguing on behalf of the central authority that the local education authority must necessarily have a majority, and that the minor authority must have a minority, he dwelt very strongly upon the possibility of a conflict which, he said, they ought to avert. That could only be averted by giving an effective majority to the county authority. To-day that was entirely forgotten. To-day all this danger of conflict was forgotten, and the locality was to have a majority; and they did not hear a single word about the necessity of giving the county authority the predominant voice. He thought the Committee would feel that this danger of conflict was greater, because these voluntary schools were, as a rule, in rural parishes. The arguments which the right hon. Gentleman used when he was arguing the other part of the Bill were far more effective now, and applied with double force than they did in the case of non-provided schools. The right hon. Gentleman in this case assumed that the elected managers would be persons hostile to the Church of England. All the probabilities, however, were that the persons who would be chosen by the County Council as managers would be members of the Church of England, and the same remark applied to the minor authorities. It was also said that
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the authority would be in the County Council, and not in the local managers. That argument had been completely refuted in the speech of his hon. friend who moved this Amendment, and he need not say any more upon that point. How could they expect that the villagers would realise the distant, fitful, and uncertain control of a County Committee, when they saw the local magnates installed in control of the school? The right hon. Gentleman had said this was not a question of taxation and representation, because the ratepayers were the people of the county and not the locality. Assuming that, he thought that the county ought to delegate its authority to those who were likely to know the facts. Taking the right hon. Gentleman's own view that the county was the area of charge, then the county ought to appoint the majority of managers; but the right hon. Gentleman proposed to give the county only one manager out of six. It was further contended that those who had expended their substance on the schools ought to retain the power over them. It was not known exactly what the capital value of the buildings was. There had been divergent and extravagant estimates given — one being as high as twenty-five millions. He entirely declined to accept such an estimate as that, but he was not in a position to give another. The argument he desired to address to the Committee was irrespective of the real capital values of the buildings. Whatever it was there were deductions which had to be made from any claim founded on the denominational right in these schools. He would deduct the Wesleyan and the British schools to begin with, pointing out that the schools had been, to a large extent, erected by building grants from the National Exchequer, amounting to not less than £6,000,000. He had never heard that estimate seriously contested. He wished very much that they had a Return bringing the grants up to date. That was a very large deduction to make from the capital value of the buildings. Another point was with regard to the subscriptions out of which these schools were erected. They were often talked about as if they were given for the purpose of providing
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denominational instruction. He believed that no idea could be more wide of the mark. He greatly doubted if denominational motives entered the minds of those who subscribed to them; the subscriptions were mainly given from purely educational motives. The subscriptions obtained from the National Society might be credited with having had a denominational motive; but as to the subscriptions of landowners and others in the locality he entirely denied that they were justified in ascribing denominational motives to them. It had often been said that the money was largely given for the purpose of averting the danger of a School Board. They all knew that was true; but he supposed nobody failed to remember the number of cases in which the appeal was made, "You will have a heavy rate if you do not pay up to erect voluntary schools." There were a large number of cases where people, having fear of a School Board, gave subscriptions out of purely educational motives. There was another deduction to be made from the capital value of schools belonging to denominations. A large number of the schools had trustees. The trust deed did not leave the school at the absolute disposal of a denomination—that was to say, it was not competent for the managers connected with a denomination to use the money for the purpose of promoting a denominational interest, and that fact must be borne in mind in estimating the value. In other words they must value the school not at what it would sell at, but what it could be used for, having regard to the conditions of the trust. Finally these buildings were not used only for educational purposes; they were used as Sunday schools, parish schools, and for a variety of purposes connected with the action of the Church of England in the parish. Enormous deductions must therefore be made from the capital value of the schools, and these deductions reduced whatever equitable claim the denomination founded on the fact that it had contributed to the building of the schools. Having regard to these equitable considerations, he thought it could not be maintained that because the buildings had been managed by denominational managers,
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and because a certain amount of denominational money had gone to them, the denominations were entitled to consider them as their property, and still less were they entitled to found upon this property, whatever its value might be, a claim to control the schools for all future time when the original conditions had been entirely changed and when their support had been transferred to the State, thereby relieving the subscribers of the charge they originally undertook. These were circumstances which had completely altered the old position of the schools, and made it unjust to allow even now what might have been allowed ten or fifteen years ago. The First Lord of the Treasury said he believed that it was only through the control of a denominational majority that the religious teaching of the schools could be carried on. They had tried to assure the right hon. Gentleman also that there was no desire to destroy the religious teaching in these schools and to ignore whatever claim the Church of England might justly assert to have denominational teaching continued in them. They had stated over and over again that they believed it would be perfectly possible to devise a plan under which this could be safeguarded. The controversy had now been narrowed down to this point— "Is it possible to safeguard that denominational teaching consistently with the assertion of the popular control of the schools?" It was not a large point, neither was the difficulty insuperable. The desire to have religious education continued was appreciated, and he and his hon. friends wanted to help hon. Members opposite to give effect to it. The real claim put forward was not that denominatianol teaching should cease, but that the schools should be recognised as the property of the people. That would give them a higher claim than ever on I the interest and sympathy of the people, and confer the greatest benefit that could be conferred upon them.

said that the Amendment might be accepted consistently with the maintenance of the strictest denominational teaching in the schools. Why should the
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First Lord of the Treasury so much fear majorities if he only wished the rights of parents to be protected? What the Bill sought to do was to force denominational; teaching on people who did not want it. The right hon. Gentleman laid it down as unconstitutional that the county should raise the money, and that the parish should spend it; and yet he proposed that a public authority should raise the money and that private individuals should spend it.

said that that did not alter the case. They might talk as much as they liked about the trust managers being private individuals, but they were the persons who would actually dole out the public money and control the expenditure.

said the Committee had now reached the crucial point of the Bill, the thing that really hurt and rankled. As the House was only to sit another half hour, it was impossible to dispose of this question in that time, and he therefore begged to move to report progress.

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Motion made and Question proposed "That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again."—(Sir Edward Grey.)

said he earnestly appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw his Motion. This was an important point, and the House had been discussing it for the last five days. He was sure that the question was now ripe for decision; and he again begged the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw his Motion.

said he wished to protest against a provision of this kind being forced through Committee without proper discussion. By the course which was being pursued by the Government an amount of irritation was being introduced into the proceedings which was perfectly deplorable.

said that if the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury thought that they ought to dispose of this point within the next half-hour, he must persist in his Motion. He quite understood the feelings of hon Gentlemen opposite, and shared them to some extent. They had been continually discussing the fringe of this question, but they had not before had the real crucial point brought to a head. Considering how important that point was, he must, if the right hon. Gentleman thought they ought to dispose of it within the next hour, persist in his Motion.

who spoke amidst continual cries of "Divide, divide! "which rendered his remarks almost inaudible in the Gallery, was understood to say that he thought the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman was amply justified; that while they had had many discussions on this question, they had never reached the crucial point; and that the argument which the First Lord of the Treasury had brought to bear against it was the strongest argument they could have for further time being granted, now that they had reached the important point which all wished to discuss.

who spoke amid interruption, said the First Lord of the Treasury had admitted quite frankly that this was a crucial part of the Bill, and he had been pressed by his light hon. friend that the debate might go on for another hour. So far as he knew, there was no magic about the hour of 7.30. He understood that there was some social function, but he would remind the Committee that they were sitting in Parliament, and though social engagements were in the balance, he submitted that being in Parliament private dinners must give way to public business. The question wras whether they should report progress now, or whether they should go on for another hour and a half. It had been said that this discussion was out of order. If that was so, it appeared to him that the five previous discussions on this Bill had been out of order. He appealed to the First Lord of the Treasury to say the time had now come when progress might be reported, and thus give an opportunity for a proper discussion of this matter.

asked why the right hon. Gentleman now moved to report progress, seeing that half-an-hour before ho had expressed himself as unable to accept such a Motion. There were many more important matters to be discussed, and as. apparently, the only other available opportunity would be Wednesday evening next, and then only by rendering adequate discussion on the Appropriation Bill impossible, it would be far better to continue the discussion now. He should therefore vote against the Motion.

said he proposed to resume the discussion on Wednesday evening, and, if necessary, to go on with it
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on Thursday. The reason he had refused to accept the Motion to report progress before was that he desired to finish the Amendment then under discussion.

MR. LLOYD-GEOKGE

asked the right hon. Gentleman to re-consider his decision to continue the debate on Wednesday, as there were many matters of importance, such as the Penrhyn and Sandhurst questions, to be discussed on the Appropriation Bill.

said he objected to reporting progress at this early hour. He had only intervened on account of the effort which was being made by the Government to stifle debate, and he, for one, should protest against it.

It is necessary for us to take the Report of the Army Excess Vote tonight if we are to conclude the business of the House on Friday next and adjourn. If we do not get the Report of the Tote tonight, the session will have to be prolonged beyond Friday.